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Who’s watching the trial?

Millions tuned in to the impeachment trial. But you saw something different on Fox.

Big headlines this morning:

Fox News leads ratings in day one of impeachment trial!

That is true. But it’s misleading people into thinking that most Americans watched on Fox. Many more people watched on a number of other networks;

The opening day of President Trump’s senate impeachment trial drew a substantial amount if viewers across the three cable news and major networks that broadcast the proceedings.

In total, around 11 million people tuned in to see prosecutors from the House of Representatives and attorneys for the White House argue over exactly how the complicated case should proceed.

Fox News led the way with 2.65 million viewers (from 12:30 p.m. to 5 p.m.), followed by CBS with 1.94 million in the same time frame. MSNBC came second among the cablers with 1.9 million, with CNN bringing up the rear, drawing 1.44 million. ABC drew 1.63 million viewers with its coverage, while NBC drew almost exactly the same figure as CNN.

NBC was the only major network to cover the trial in the evening (5:18 p.m. to 7:40 p.m.), during which time it received a healthy boost in numbers to 2.8 million, topping Fox News which drew 2.63 million, MSNBC at just under 2 million, and CNN at around 1.5 million.

In terms of the key news demographic of people aged 25-54, Fox News narrowly beat out ABC and CNN for top spot. FN delivered 394,000 to ABC’s 385,000 and CNN’s 383,000. Next came CBS with 362,000, followed by NBC with 350,000 and finally MSNBC with 261,000.

In primetime (8 p.m. to 11 p.m.), Fox News led the way with 3.5 million to MSNBC’s 2.5 million and CNN’s 1.5 million.

This doesn’t count the people who were listening on the radio or watched online. It also doesn’t delineate “prime time” on the west coast vs the east coast. The trial was running in both.

But the point is that more people were watching on the other networks than were watching on Fox. And those watching on Fox were not actually watching the trial. To be precise, they weren’t hearing the trial.

What this means is that the Trump cult is seeing something different than the rest of the country, as usual. But there are more people in the rest of the country who are seeing the actual trial.

51% of the country wants Trump removed from office and those people are not watching that drivel. It should follow that if the Republicans refuse to do their duty, he will be removed next November anyway. And a few of them might suffer the same fate.

Published inUncategorized